The Moth
by starboarder
Summary: This trio of vignettes centers around the motif of the moth that appears in the first proposal scene and takes off from there. Italics in Part 1 indicate Bronte's original language, all other italics are my own.
1. The Moth Part 1

_Jane, come and look at this fellow._

The moth has alighted on the slender stalk of a plant at his very boot-toe. He speaks softly, his body motionless to avoid disturbing the aerial creature. How is it he can be so still, almost as if he were part of the orchard himself – a blade of grass, a leaf on the chestnut tree yonder? How can he be so calm, when she is all inner agitation, her heart trembling within her, strained nearly to breaking point?

_Look at his wings_.

She obeys. She would look at anything he revealed to her, and he is always showing her things, whether pointing out the bright tints of a sunrise, or a luminous cloud, or the flash of a swallow's wings as it takes flight. Always he is stopping to share with her the things that give him pleasure. And every sight, every glimpse he gives her is a memory to be treasured and stored away in that tiny gallery she keeps in a corner of her mind. Sometimes, as she lies in bed at night, she enters this gallery and takes inventory, as though she were a curator in a museum built from the fragments of dreams. Tonight she will add this quivering moth with its wings of woven silver – a wondrous, otherworldly thing. Yes, she will add this moth, and with it the memory of the scent of his cigar, stealing among the orchard foliage and creeping in with the evening.

_There, he is flown!_

The moth retreats from his boot-toe, away to find another resting place. Would that _she_ could leave him as easily, with such nonchalance! Would that there could be another resting place for her, where his absence would not break her heart. She knows she must leave Thornfield. She knows she will be obliged to leave it soon. And every fleeting moment she spends near him is precious, though with every moment it seems more impossible that she will ever have the strength to part from him.

She ought not to be walking alone with him at this hour, in the purple dusk of evening. In a masterful marshalling of willpower, she turns from him, but again his voice arrests her. _Turn back_. _On so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house_. She is helpless at his words. To cling to propriety in the face of his softly-spoken, cordial invitation seems suddenly shallow and selfish. But with every new kindness from him, every gentle gesture, she loses another small piece of herself. Doesn't he know that his nearness is destroying her?

A surge of intense sorrow comes upon her, its acuteness almost overwhelming. She is seized with a premonition: the stillness of the evening, the paradisal quality of their surroundings, his wonderful, terrible kindness to her in these moments – what can they all amount to but a culmination, an ending? These, the sweetest moments she has yet spent with him, are to be the last. The time of departure has arrived – that is why he has sought her company, why he is even now compelling her to stay outside with him, to walk with him here in the gloaming. Soon the command will come. She steels herself to receive it with the same calm, the same untroubled quiet that surrounds him this night, but in every whisper of breeze, every rustle, every poignant note of birdsong, she hears a requiem. Her glorious, Elysian days at Thornfield, like the vanished moth, are already flown.


	2. The Moth Part 2

She is running. She knows that she is near Thornfield, in the fields around it or the orchard behind it, but a peculiar fog - more like mist - shrouds her surroundings and makes the familiar strange to her. The mist is thick, and tendrils of it swirl about her feet so that, when she looks down, she seems to be running on cloud rather than grass.

She does not know what she is running from exactly, but always at her back is a vague sense of dread, a fear that drives her forward, though she cannot see where she is going. She swipes at the mist as though brushing aside a curtain, but always there is more, impeding her vision, obscuring her path.

She knows what she is running toward, or at least she believes she does. She is running toward Thornfield, toward safety, toward protection from whatever chases her. She is sure that once she reaches it, the fear will cease. But her feet are growing weary, and she cannot see where she is going. Thoughts of _him_ - and a solid conviction that he is nearby, waiting just beyond the next swirl of mist - drive her on.

Finally, just when she thinks she will have to sink down on the ground rather than run another minute, the mist begins to thin and part before her. She stops and gazes ahead in relief, sighing at the glimpse of her sanctuary, so nearly reached. The sigh catches in her throat. She blinks, stares in shocked disbelief. Where once stood the stately façade of Thornfield Hall, there is now nothing but bare ground. Not a single stone remains of the structure – not a sign that it was ever there. Her head swims, she reels, turning to look with increasing desperation around her for some sign, some proof that she has by mischance mistaken the locality of the house. But no, the mist is disappearing, revealing the familiar landscape: the orchard wall, the sunken fence, even the looming, blackened remains of the chestnut tree, just now coming out of concealment. She has made no error. The wind that is driving the mist away carries with it a peculiar smell, almost of smoke, and something – can it be ashes? – floats above her in the air.

A cry escapes her. She covers her eyes like a child, praying that when she unveils them, the terrors will be gone.

_Jane_.

His voice! Her eyes fly open. He is stepping out from behind the chestnut tree, approaching her, smiling at her. She has found him at last. She runs to him, throws her arms around him. _Edward, Edward, I thought you would never come! _Again and again she speaks his name, as though the repetition will make his presence more real. But his arms encircle her, his lips are on hers, his voice, gentle and low, whispers reassurances in her ear.

_I would never leave you, Jane._

Gradually, her trembling heart settles, her fear subsides and vanishes. She knows she is safe. He is holding her so close, here by the riven chestnut tree where he had first claimed her as his, where he had sworn before heaven to guard, cherish and solace her. She knows she will never again be alone, but still she clings to him, silently willing him never to let her go.

_Jane, look!_

She turns in his embrace and follows the direction of his pointing finger. The air is filled with grey, fluttering things – not ashes but moths: hundreds of moths.

She wakes with a start. She is in her own, curtainless bed, in her own humble schoolhouse. The night is still and very dark, but by her bedside the last bit of wick in her candle is still sustaining a small flame, and around it, shadow flung large and tremulous upon the wall, hovers a lone moth.

It hovers so near the candle that she is sure its wings will soon be singed, but it turns away only to dart still closer to the fire. The poor creature cannot help itself. It is in its nature to draw near the flame, however dangerous, however ultimately destructive the instinct might prove. She rises, leans over, and gently blows out the candle.

She can see nothing in the succeeding darkness, but she feels the momentary brush of tiny wings against her cheek as the moth escapes into the night.

She weeps.


	3. The Mothe Part 3

It is near noon on this, one of the longest days of the year, but here in the silvery half-light of the tree-enclosed drive, one might easily mistake the hour for dusk. The air is very still, and besides the occasional call of a bird, or the rustling of some small animal among the trees, little can be heard but the soft tread of their slow, steady footfall. The unearthly sylvan light, the immense quiet, the incredible, exquisite nearness of him belong, it seems to her, to another world – a dream world – yet she knows them to be real. The present is as real and substantial as the ring she now wears around her finger, as real as the warmth of his body pressed against hers as they walk side by side toward the house.

The most wonderfully real thing of all is the soaring happiness within her. But three days since, she passed alone up this very path, beset by fears and doubts that all but suffocated the fragile, budding hope that struggled among them. Now, hope and joy have triumphed, blossoming in her heart, on her face and on his. She can see it in his flushed, ardent countenance, in the smile that is continually flitting across his face. She herself is on the verge of laughter – laughter at the sheer joy of the knowledge that he is her _husband_. This morning, as she spoke the words that would bind her to him, she experienced not the slightest flicker of remorse, not the least shadow of a doubt. She looked him full in the face as she spoke, directly into his eyes; he who could not look at her but whose hand trembled visibly as the ring was given him to place on her finger. It was the same ring, miraculously saved from the inferno that had claimed all other traces of that unhappy, bygone time. It is only a simple gold band, engraved on the inside with a short inscription: _EFR to JER_, but it means more to her than all the jewels and finery in the kingdom. It shines with an almost preternatural brightness in the shafts of sunlight that strike their path through breaks in the leafy canopy above them.

The path turns and suddenly she can see the house at the end of it: _her_ house, now. She is filled with a wondrous sense of homecoming at the sight of it. She has been journeying for so long that to have finally found a resting place is an idea she can scarcely grasp – it seems almost too magnificent a thing to be true. And it is not a solitary abode, not a lonely one, despite its sequestered location, its dusky, wooded surroundings. _He_ is there; he who is the center of her existence, whose presence is the light of her days. She rests her head against his shoulder and feels his arm tighten around her in response, and she wills herself to preserve this moment, this first view of her home, the warmth of her husband's arm around her shoulders, the fresh, earthy scents of the wood around them mingling with the wool of his jacket.

She knows they ought not to linger. She knows that John and Mary will be wondering where they are. She knows there will be explaining to do and the token of celebration to be paid them, and of course letters of announcement to be written and sent and household arrangements to be made. Life – not only _her_ life now, but _theirs_ – awaits them; behind the unpretentious walls of the manor house lie a thousand new joys and adventures never yet imagined. But now, in this first blissful hour of their union, she half-wishes they would never reach it, that she could prolong forever this slow walk along the drive, holding on to one another like life itself, still filled with awe at the simple reality of each other's presence.

She has paused and bent down to gather a handful of the bluebells that grow in clusters by the side of the path for him to smell, when she sees the moth. It is a large, silver creature, roving among the flowers at her feet, so close that she could reach out and touch it. It is like something from another time that has strayed accidentally into this one. Her breath catches.

_Oh Edward! _

She speaks softly, describing for him the delicate antennae, the tiny hairs that cover its gossamer wings. _I never thought to see such another creature again_.

_Nor did I, my darling_.

She turns her eyes from the moth to his face – it is rapt with wonder, and she knows he is remembering just as she is, revisiting that charmed, unreal evening by the chestnut tree: one of the few pure, untainted memories of that bittersweet summer.

Slowly – so slowly – they begin walking again, twined together in embrace, holding each other and this shared memory like a tiny specimen preserved in glass of a world long-since gone. The moth glides ahead of them, up to the edge of lawn that marks the wood's end, then swerves back into the shade, but they go forward, into the brilliant light.


End file.
